Funk is a type of music that began in African-American communities in the mid-1960s. Musicians combined different popular music styles from the mid-20th century to create a new kind of music that is rhythmic and easy to dance to. Funk focuses more on rhythm than on melody or chord patterns. It often features a strong, repeating bassline played by an electric bassist and a drum part played by a percussionist, usually with slower tempos than other music styles. Funk music usually has complex, rhythmic patterns with instruments playing interlocking rhythms that create a "hypnotic" and "danceable" feeling. Early funk, especially by James Brown, mixed jazz and blues with a syncopated drum rhythm.
Funk began in the mid-1960s when James Brown developed a unique rhythm that emphasized the first beat of each measure, called "The One." He used swung 16th notes and syncopation in basslines, drum patterns, and guitar riffs. Musicians influenced by rock and psychedelia, such as Sly and the Family Stone and Parliament-Funkadelic, helped expand the genre in the late 1960s. Other artists, including Kool and the Gang, Ohio Players, Fatback Band, Jimmy Castor Bunch, Bootsy Collins, Earth, Wind & Fire, B.T. Express, Hamilton Bohannon, One Way, Lakeside, Dazz Band, The Gap Band, Slave, Aurra, Roger Troutman & Zapp, Con Funk Shun, Cameo, Bar-Kays, and Chic, continued to develop Brown's ideas during the 1970s and 1980s.
Funk has influenced many other music styles, such as avant-funk, an experimental version of funk; boogie, a mix of electronic music and funk; funk metal; G-funk, which combines gangsta rap and psychedelic funk; Timba, a type of Cuban dance music with a funky feel; and funk jam. Funk is also the main influence behind Washington go-go, a subgenre of funk. Samples and breakbeats from funk music have been widely used in hip-hop and electronic dance music.
Etymology
The word "funk" originally meant (and still means) a strong smell. It came from the Latin word fumigare, which means "to smoke," through Old French fungiere. The word first appeared in English in 1620. In 1784, the word "funky" was first used to describe something "musty," which later led to the meaning "earthy." Around 1900, this meaning was used in early jazz slang to describe something "deeply or strongly felt." In white culture, the word "funk" can sometimes mean a bad smell or being in a bad mood ("in a funk"). However, in African communities, the word was still connected to body odor but also had a positive meaning. It described how a musician's hard work and honest effort led to sweat, and their physical effort created an "exquisite" and "superlative" performance.
In early jam sessions, musicians would tell each other, "Now, put some stank on it!" to encourage one another to move. At least as early as 1907, jazz songs had titles like "Funky." The first example was an unrecorded song by Buddy Bolden, known as either "Funky Butt" or "Buddy Bolden's Blues." The lyrics, according to Donald M. Marquis, were either "comical and light" or "crude and downright obscene," but they all referred to the sweaty atmosphere at dances where Bolden's band played. As late as the 1950s and early 1960s, the words "funk" and "funky" were still seen as improper for polite conversation. According to one source, New Orleans-born drummer Earl Palmer was the first to use the word "funky" to tell other musicians their music should be more syncopated and danceable. This style later developed into a strong, insistent rhythm with a more sensual quality. This early form of the music influenced later musicians. The music was described as slow, sexy, loose, riff-oriented, and easy to dance to.
The meaning of "funk" continues to be important in Black music, feelings, and knowledge. Recent studies in Black culture have explored the many meanings of "funk" to understand Black movement and culture. In particular, L.H. Stallings's Funk the Erotic: Transaesthetics and Black Sexual Cultures examines these meanings to discuss ideas about sexuality, culture, and Western control in places connected to "funk": "street parties, drama/theater, strippers and strip clubs, pornography, and self-published fiction."
Characteristics
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Funk music, like soul, is based on dance music, so it has a strong "rhythmic role." The sound of funk is as much based on the "spaces between the notes" as the notes that are played; as such, rests between notes are important. While there are rhythmic similarities between funk and disco, funk has a "central dance beat that's slower, sexier and more syncopated than disco," and funk rhythm section musicians add more "subtextures," complexity and "personality" onto the main beat than a programmed synth-based disco ensemble.
Before funk, most pop music was based on sequences of eighth notes, because the fast tempos made further subdivisions of the beat infeasible. The innovation of funk was that by using slower tempos (surely influenced by the revival of blues in the early 1960s), funk "created space for further rhythmic subdivision, so a bar of 4 could now accommodate possible 16 note placements." Specifically, by having the guitar and drums play in "motoring" sixteenth-note rhythms, it created the opportunity for the other instruments to play "more syncopated, broken-up style," which facilitated a move to more "liberated" basslines. Together, these "interlocking parts" created a "hypnotic" and "danceable feel."
A great deal of funk is rhythmically based on a two-celled onbeat/offbeat structure, which originated in sub-Saharan African music traditions. New Orleans appropriated the bifurcated structure from the Afro-Cuban mambo and conga in the late 1940s, and made it its own. New Orleans funk, as it was called, gained international acclaim largely because James Brown's rhythm section used it to great effect.
Funk uses the same richly colored extended chords found in bebop jazz, such as minor chords with added sevenths and elevenths, or dominant seventh chords with altered ninths. Some examples of chords used in funk are minor eleventh chords (e.g., F minor 11th); dominant seventh with added sharp ninth and a suspended fourth (e.g., C7 (#9) sus 4); dominant ninth chords (e.g., F9); and minor sixth chords (e.g., C minor 6). The six-ninth chord is used in funk (e.g., F 6/9); it is a major chord with an added sixth and ninth. In funk, minor seventh chords are more common than minor triads because minor triads were found to be too thin-sounding. Some of the best known and most skillful soloists in funk have jazz backgrounds. Trombonist Fred Wesley and saxophonists Pee Wee Ellis and Maceo Parker are among the most notable musicians in the funk music genre, having worked with James Brown, George Clinton and Prince.
Unlike bebop jazz, with its complex, rapid-fire chord changes, funk often uses a static single-chord or two-chord vamp (often alternating a minor seventh chord and a related dominant seventh chord, such as A minor to D7) during all or part of a song, with melodo-harmonic movement and a complex, driving rhythmic feel. Even though some funk songs are mainly one-chord vamps, the rhythm section musicians may embellish this chord by moving it up or down a semitone or a tone to create chromatic passing chords. For example, the verse section of "Play That Funky Music" (by Wild Cherry) mainly uses an E ninth chord, but it also uses F#9 and F9.
The chords used in funk songs typically imply a Dorian or Mixolydian mode, as opposed to the major or natural minor tonalities of most popular music. Melodic content was derived by mixing these modes with the blues scale. In the 1970s, jazz music drew upon funk to create a new subgenre of jazz-funk, which can be heard in recordings by Miles Davis (Live-Evil, On the Corner), and Herbie Hancock (Head Hunters).
Funk continues the African musical tradition of improvisation, in that in a funk band, the group would typically "feel" when to change, by "jamming" and "grooving," even in the studio recording stage, which might only be based on the skeleton framework for each song. Funk uses "collective improvisation," in which musicians at rehearsals would have what was metaphorically a musical "conversation," an approach which extended to the onstage performances.
Funk creates an intense groove by using strong guitar riffs and basslines played on electric bass. Like Motown recordings, funk songs use basslines as the centerpiece of songs. Indeed, funk has been called the style in which the bassline is most prominent in the songs, with the bass playing the "hook" of the song. Early funk basslines used syncopation (typically syncopated eighth notes), but with the addition of more of a "driving feel" than in New Orleans funk, and they used blues scale notes along with the major third above the root. Later funk basslines use sixteenth note syncopation, blues scales, and repetitive patterns, often with leaps of an octave or a larger interval.
Funk basslines emphasize repetitive patterns, locked-in grooves, continuous playing, and slap and popping bass. Slapping and popping uses a mixture of thumb-slapped low notes (also called "thumped") and finger "popped" (or plucked) high notes, allowing the bass to have a drum-like rhythmic role, which became a distinctive element of funk. Notable slap and funky players include Bernard Edwards (Chic), Robert "Kool" Bell, Mark Adams (Slave), Johnny Flippin (Fatback) and Bootsy Collins. While slap and funky is important, some influential bassists who play funk, such as Rocco Prestia (from Tower of Power), did not use the approach, and instead used a typical fingerstyle method based on James Jamerson's Motown playing style. Larry Graham from Sly and the Family Stone is an influential bassist.
Funk bass has an "earthy, percussive kind of feel," in part due to the use of muted, rhythmic ghost notes (also called "dead notes"). Some funk bass players use electronic effects units to alter the tone of their instrument, such as "envelope filters" (an auto-wah effect that creates a "gooey, slurpy, quacky, and syrupy" sound) and imitate keyboard synthesizer bass tones (e.g., the Mutron envelope filter) and overdriven fuzz bass effects, which are used to create the "classic fuzz tone that sounds like old school Funk records." Other effects that are used include the flanger and bass chorus. Collins also used a Mu-Tron Octave Divider, an octave pedal that, like the Octavia pedal popularized by Hendrix, can double a note an octave above and below to create a "futuristic and fat low-end sound."
One could argue that no music form highlights the drummer more than funk. The fat grooves, the dirty backbeats, the snap of a tight snare, the syncopated hits with a stellar horn section, the deep pocket against a smooth bass line…you're probably groovin' in your seat just thinking about it. Funk music is all about the beat, and it's no coincidence that many of our most influential drummers have made a name for themselves playing the style.
Funk drumming creates a groove by emphasizing the drummer's "feel and emotion," which includes "occasional tempo fluctuations," the use of swing feel in some songs (e.g., "Cissy Strut" by The Meters and "I'll Take You There" by The Staple Singers, which have a half-swung feel), and less use of fills (as they can lessen the groove). Drum fills are "few and economical," to ensure that the drumming stays "in the pocket," with a steady tempo and groove. These playing techniques are supplemented by a set-up for the drum kit that often includes muffled bass drums and toms and tightly tuned snare drums. Double bass drumming sounds are often done by funk drummers with a single pedal, an approach which "accents the second note… [and] deadens the drumhead's resonance," which gives a short, muffled bass drum sound.
James Brown used two drummers such as Clyde Stubblefield and John 'Jabo' Starks in recording and soul shows. By using two drummers, the JB band was able to maintain a "solid syncopated" rhythmic sound, which contributed to the band's distinctive "Funky Drummer" rhythm.
In Tower of Power drummer David Garibaldi's playing, there are many ghost notes.
History
Funk music came from a mix of different music styles that were popular among African Americans in the mid-1900s. Musicologist Anne Danielsen said that funk could be connected to rhythm and blues, jazz, and soul. Sociologist Darby E. Southgate wrote that funk is "a mix of gospel, soul, jazz fusion, rhythm and blues, and black rock."
The unique features of African-American music come from traditions in sub-Saharan Africa. These traditions first appeared in spirituals, work songs, praise shouts, gospel, blues, and "body rhythms" like hambone, patting juba, and ring shout clapping and stomping.
Like jazz, soul, and R&B, funk music was often used to support protest movements during and after the Civil Rights Movement.
Gerhard Kubik noted that, except for New Orleans, early blues did not have complex polyrhythms. He also said that early 20th-century African-American music rarely had asymmetric time-line patterns, but some New Orleans music had simple time-line patterns in songs like "stomp" or "stop-time" choruses.
In the late 1940s, the two-celled time line structure was added to New Orleans blues. New Orleans musicians were especially open to Afro-Cuban influences when R&B was forming. Dave Bartholomew and Professor Longhair (Henry Roeland Byrd) used Afro-Cuban instruments and clave patterns in songs like "Carnival Day" (1949) and "Mardi Gras In New Orleans" (1949). Robert Palmer wrote that Professor Longhair listened to and played with musicians from the islands and was influenced by Perez Prado’s mambo records. His style was called "rumba-boogie" locally.
Professor Longhair’s use of two-celled, clave-based patterns in New Orleans R&B became a model for funk. Dr. John (Malcolm John "Mac" Rebennack Jr.) said that Longhair "put funk into music," and his style directly influenced much of the funk music that developed in New Orleans. In "Mardi Gras in New Orleans," Longhair used the 2-3 clave onbeat/offbeat motif in a rumba-boogie "guajeo."
The syncopated, but straight subdivision feel of Cuban music became part of New Orleans R&B. Alexander Stewart said that musicians outside New Orleans began to learn rhythmic practices from the city. James Brown and the drummers and arrangers he used were especially important. Brown’s early music used shuffle rhythms, but his shift to a funkier style required a 4/4 meter and different drumming techniques. Stewart noted that the rhythm style from New Orleans after World War II played a key role in developing funk. He also said that American popular music changed from triplet or shuffle feels to even or straight eighth notes.
James Brown credited Little Richard’s 1950s R&B band, The Upsetters from New Orleans, as "the first to put the funk into the rhythm" of rock and roll. After Little Richard left secular music in 1957, some of his band members joined Brown and the Famous Flames, leading to many hits starting in 1958. By the mid-1960s, Brown developed a signature groove that focused on the downbeat, emphasizing the first beat of each measure instead of the backbeat common in African-American music. He told his band, "On the one!" to shift the rhythm from the one-two-three-four backbeat to a one-two-three-four downbeat, with syncopated guitar rhythms on beats two and four. This one-three beat started with his 1964 hit "Out of Sight" and his 1965 hits "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag" and "I Got You (I Feel Good)."
Brown’s funk style used interlocking parts: syncopated basslines, 16th beat drum patterns, and syncopated guitar riffs. The guitar riffs in "Ain’t It Funky" (late 1960s) show his refinement of New Orleans funk. The song has a simple tonal structure, and Brown’s innovations made him and his band the leading funk act. His music, such as "Cold Sweat" (1967), "Mother Popcorn" (1969), and "Get Up (I Feel Like Being A) Sex Machine" (1970), moved away from the twelve-bar blues in his earlier work. Instead, Brown’s music used "catchy, anthemic vocals" with "extensive vamps" and used his voice as a percussive instrument, similar to West African polyrhythms found in African-American work songs and chants. His energetic vocals, with screams and grunts, echoed the "ecstatic ambiance of the black church" in a secular context.
After 1965, Brown’s bandleader and arranger was Alfred "Pee Wee" Ellis. Ellis said that Clyde Stubblefield’s use of New Orleans drumming techniques was the basis of modern funk. Stewart said that the popular feel of New Orleans music spread through James Brown’s music to 1970s popular music. He noted that the funk model was different from time lines like clave and tresillo because it was not an exact pattern but a loose organizing principle.
In a 1990 interview, Brown explained that he changed his music’s rhythm from the upbeat to the downbeat. Maceo Parker, Brown’s former saxophonist, said it was hard for him to adjust to playing "on the one" at first, as he was used to the accent on the second beat.
A new group of musicians helped develop the "funk rock" style. George Clinton, with his bands Parliament and Funkadelic, created a new kind of funk influenced by jazz and psychedelic rock. The two groups shared members and were often called "Parliament-Funkadelic." Their popularity led to the term "P-Funk," which described the music by George Clinton’s bands and defined a new subgenre. Clinton was also part of other bands, including Parlet, the Horny Horns, and the Brides of Funkenstein, all part of the P-Funk movement.
Derivatives
Starting in the early 1970s, funk music began to create many different types, or subgenres. While George Clinton and the Parliament made a harder version of funk, other groups like Kool and the Gang, Ohio Players, and Earth, Wind and Fire blended funk with disco styles. Amadou & Mariam combined traditional Malian music with rock guitars, Syrian violins, Cuban trumpets, Egyptian ney, Indian tablas, and Dogon percussion. These mixed sounds were called "Afro-Funk."
Funk rock (also written as funk-rock or funk/rock) mixes elements of funk and rock music. Its earliest form was heard in the late 1960s through the mid-1970s by artists like Jimi Hendrix, Frank Zappa, Gary Wright, David Bowie, Mother's Finest, and Funkadelic on their early albums.
Funk rock can include many instruments, but it is defined by strong bass or drum beats and electric guitars. The rhythms are influenced by funk but are more intense, and the guitar often has a distorted sound. Major artists in this style include Prince, Jesse Johnson, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Fishbone.
The term "avant-funk" describes music that mixes funk with art rock. Simon Frith said this style focuses on rhythm rather than melody or harmony, while Simon Reynolds described it as a type of music that uses physical energy and self-expression to create a sense of immersion.
Artists in this style include the German band Can and American musicians Sly Stone and George Clinton. In the early 1980s, UK and US post-punk artists like Public Image Ltd, Talking Heads, the Pop Group, Gang of Four, Bauhaus, Cabaret Voltaire, Defunkt, A Certain Ratio, and 23 Skidoo adopted styles from disco and funk. Artists in the late 1970s New York no wave scene also explored avant-funk, influenced by musicians like Ornette Coleman. These artists often focused on themes such as loneliness, control, and modern society.
Go-go music began in the Washington, D.C., area and is still closely tied to that region and other parts of the Mid-Atlantic. Inspired by Chuck Brown, known as the "Godfather of Go-go," it blends funk, rhythm and blues, and early hip-hop. It uses simple percussion instruments and live jamming instead of dance-focused tracks. Go-go is mainly a dance music style that emphasizes live audience call-and-response. Its rhythms are also used in street percussion.
Boogie is an electronic music style influenced by funk and post-disco. It uses synthesizers and keyboards, which helped create electro and house music. Unlike electro, boogie focuses on bass guitar slapping techniques and bass synthesizers. Artists include Vicky "D," Komiko, Peech Boys, Kashif, and Evelyn King.
Electro funk is a mix of electronic music and funk. It follows the same structure as funk but uses electronic instruments like the TR-808. Vocoders or talkboxes are often used to change vocal sounds. The band Zapp was known for using these tools. Bootsy Collins also added more electronic sounds in his later work. Other artists include Herbie Hancock, Afrika Bambaataa, Egyptian Lover, Vaughan Mason & Crew, Midnight Star, and Cybotron.
Funk metal is a music style that combines funk and heavy metal, often thrash metal, and sometimes includes punk or experimental elements. It uses heavy metal guitar riffs, the strong bass rhythms of funk, and sometimes hip-hop-style rhymes. A key example is the African-American band Living Colour, who were called "funk-metal pioneers" by Rolling Stone. This style was most popular in California during the late 1980s and early 1990s.
G-funk is a mix of gangsta rap and funk. It was created by West Coast rappers and popularized by Dr. Dre. It uses layered synthesizers, slow grooves, deep bass, female background vocals, samples from P-Funk music, and a high-pitched saw wave synthesizer. Unlike earlier rap acts, G-funk often uses fewer, unchanged samples per song.
Timba is a type of Cuban dance music with a funky style. By 1990, Cuban bands began adding funk and hip-hop elements to their music. They expanded traditional Cuban ensembles by using American drum sets, saxophones, and two keyboards. Timba bands like La Charanga Habanera and Bamboleo often include short parts from songs by Earth, Wind and Fire or Kool and the Gang. While many funk styles use a clave-based structure intuitively, Timba intentionally uses a clave pattern to organize its music.
Social impact
Funk music is popular in modern times, but few people have studied the contributions of women in this genre. Important women in funk music include Chaka Khan, Labelle, Brides of Funkenstein, Klymaxx, Mother's Finest, Lyn Collins, Betty Davis, and Teena Marie. Cultural critic Cheryl Keyes explains in her essay "She Was Too Black for Rock and Too Hard for Soul: (Re)discovering the Musical Career of Betty Mabry Davis" that most research about funk focuses on the work of men. She writes that Betty Davis is an artist whose name has not been widely recognized as a pioneer in funk and rock music. Most writing on these genres has traditionally highlighted male artists like Jimi Hendrix, George Clinton (of Parliament-Funkadelic), and bassist Larry Graham as leaders in shaping rock music.
In The Feminist Funk Power of Betty Davis and Renée Stout, Nikki A. Greene notes that Davis' bold and controversial style helped her gain popularity in the 1970s. She focused on themes about self-empowerment and sexuality. Greene also explains that Davis was never officially chosen as a representative for the civil rights or feminist movements of her time. However, her work has recently become a symbol of sexual freedom for women of color. Davis' song "If I'm In Luck I Just Might Get Picked Up," from her self-titled debut album, caused controversy and was banned by the Detroit NAACP. Maureen Mahan, a musicologist and anthropologist, examines Davis' influence on the music industry and the American public in her article "They Say She's Different: Race, Gender, Genre, and the Liberated Black Femininity of Betty Davis."
Laina Dawes, the author of What Are You Doing Here: A Black Woman's Life and Liberation in Heavy Metal, believes that respectability politics—societal expectations about how people should behave—explains why artists like Davis are not as well-known as their male counterparts. She says, "I blame what I call respectability politics as part of the reason the funk-rock women from the '70s aren't better known. Despite the importance of their music and presence, many of the funk-rock females represented the aggressive behavior and sexuality that many people were not comfortable with."
According to Francesca T. Royster, Rickey Vincent, in his book Funk: The Music, The People, and The Rhythm of The One, analyzes the impact of Labelle but only briefly. Royster criticizes Vincent's analysis, stating: "It is a shame, then, that Vincent gives such minimal attention to Labelle's performances in his study. This reflects, unfortunately, a still consistent sexism that shapes the evaluation of funk music. In Funk, Vincent's analysis of Labelle is brief—sharing a single paragraph with the Pointer Sisters in his three-page sub chapter, 'Funky Women.' He writes that while 'Lady Marmalade' 'blew the lid off of the standards of sexual innuendo and skyrocketed the group's star status,' the band's 'glittery image slipped into the disco undertow and was ultimately wasted as the trio broke up in search of solo status' (Vincent, 1996, 192)." Many female artists in funk also share songs in the disco, soul, and R&B genres. Some believe Labelle falls into this category of women who are split among genres due to a critical view of music theory and the history of sexism in the United States.
In the 21st century, artists like Janelle Monáe have encouraged more research and analysis about the role of women in the funk music genre. Monáe's style challenges ideas about gender, sexuality, and self-expression in a way similar to male pioneers in funk. Her albums focus on Afro-futuristic themes, highlighting female and Black empowerment and visions of a dystopian future. In his article "Janelle Monáe and Afro-sonic Feminist Funk," Matthew Valnes writes that Monáe's involvement in the funk genre contrasts with the traditional view of funk as a male-centered genre. Valnes acknowledges that funk is male-dominated but explains the societal reasons for this situation.
Monáe's influences include her mentor Prince, Funkadelic, Lauryn Hill, and other funk and R&B artists. However, according to Emily Lordi, "[Betty] Davis is seldom listed among Janelle Monáe's many influences, and certainly the younger singer's high-tech concepts, virtuosic performances, and meticulously produced songs are far removed from Davis's proto-punk aesthetic. But… like Davis, she also is closely linked with a visionary male mentor (Prince). The title of Monáe's 2013 album, The Electric Lady, alludes to Hendrix's Electric Ladyland, but it also implicitly cites the coterie of women that inspired Hendrix himself: that group, called the Cosmic Ladies or Electric Ladies, was together led by Hendrix's lover Devon Wilson and Betty Davis."